The House on Vesper Sands

by Paraic O?Donnell

  ‘You judge yourself harshly, madam. We guess at small acts of wickedness, since they are familiar to us. But crimes of this magnitude …’ Neuilly bowed his head for a moment, and as he did so Gideon was struck by how aged he now appeared. ‘The darkness, in that box. They nailed it shut, and the vapour began to rise around me. The taste of it, thick against my throat. I will not forget it soon. He’ll give no trouble, I heard Strythe say. The dose was fit for a horse. Wait for an hour, then look for me at the house. If you do not find me, bring him back to the yard and await my instructions. The girl will be done soon enough, he said, and she can go in on top. That is how he spoke of her, of my bright one. It roused a rage in me even as I was passing from my senses, and as I scrabbled for purchase against the walls of the box I chanced upon a knothole. I pressed my face to it and tasted untainted air once more, then I kept as still as I might and did not stir for hours Afterwards, when the cart had long since halted and all outside was silent. I was saved, though I was not worthy of it and could not fathom why. I retrieved the bottle they had used. It was empty now, but I wished to return it to them even so, as a token of my resolve. I took a room for the night, being very much weakened. I recovered what I could of my strength. And then I began the work for which the Lord had surely saved me.’

  Cutter got up and went to the window, a growing restlessness in his movements. He had let himself be ruled by caution until now, but Gideon knew his dislike of confinement and inaction. ‘Nothing stirring, Lieutenant?’

  ‘Nothing, sir. The weather does not help our cause, mind, but I have stood watch in worse.’

  ‘This man Hartington,’ the inspector said, turning to the room. ‘You know him best, Miss Hillingdon. You say he came here to snuff out a scandal that might bring him down, to put us all out of the way of talking. But what kind of man is he, beyond being bad to his core? How is he apt to go about it?’

  Miss Hillingdon considered this. ‘He will hide. It’s what he does. He will stay hidden for as long as he possibly can. And when he shows himself, he will know that he has only one chance.’

  Cutter gave a grim nod and worked at his neck. ‘And still no sign of the girl.’

  Gideon looked out over the grounds to the sea beyond. The sky was burdened and gloomy, but a ribbon of radiance survived above the water, staining it with ochre and violet. This strange light touched the gardens in places, scoring them with long shadows. ‘Inspector,’ he said. ‘We ought to consider, I think, that this may not unfold according to any plan of Hartington’s.’

  ‘What do you mean, Bliss?’

  ‘You said yourself, sir, that Miss Tatton sees what we cannot. That she has a long reach now.’

  ‘I felt her hand,’ Neuilly said. He spoke distractedly, as if thinking aloud.

  ‘Uncle?’

  ‘On the train, with that man, the one calling himself Brown. When I did what I did, I felt her hand on mine. I saw her hand. You will think me mad, but look at me. I would not have had the strength.’

  ‘And Strythe, sir,’ Gideon continued. ‘He did not come here, surely, with the intention of hanging himself from the gate. He believed he was carrying my uncle’s remains – forgive me, sir – and he had come to dispose of them. What he did, he did at her bidding. You said as much yourself.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cutter said. ‘That much I am persuaded of. I have seen the like before. But what is she waiting for, if that is the way of it? She wasted no time with Strythe.’

  ‘She ain’t waiting, Inspector.’ It was the lieutenant. ‘Not any more.’

  They gathered at the windows.

  ‘Angie,’ Gideon said softly. She stood perhaps twenty feet from the house. She was waning still. He had been prepared for it, or so he thought, but at the sight of her he felt a helpless lurch of sorrow. The vanishing had spread to her left side, claiming her fingertips and the lower part of her leg. Beneath her nightgown, too, there were signs of fading, places where her silhouette did not seem whole.

  But there were other changes now, of a kind he had not seen before. Her vanished parts had been imperceptible before in daylight, and by night only a faint and gaseous tracery had been visible. But they had brightened now, becoming distinct even in the strange dusk that the storm had brought, and she seemed formed in part of a gauzy tissue of radiance, sharpened at its edges so that it might have been etched into the air itself.

  ‘Lord Jesus,’ the lieutenant said.

  Lightning flickered out at sea, and a moment after it there came a blunt surge of thunder. The French doors rattled in their frame, and out on the dunes, the marram grass was stirred and silvered under the wind. Angie raised her arm, holding the pale flame of it aloft in the darkness, then she turned away towards the sands.

  ‘Well,’ said Neuilly. ‘There she is, come into her glory. Whatever she intends, I fancy she will give us no better sign that that.’

  Cutter drew out his revolver and nodded to the lieutenant. ‘Bliss, stay at my back and do not fall too far behind. Ladies, will you make these doors fast again when we are gone?’

  Lady Ada strode towards him and met his eye. She was very nearly his equal in height, and no less commanding in aspect. ‘Don’t be absurd, Inspector. In the first place, Miss Hillingdon’s is the gravest duty of all. She will be the one to put what happens here before the public, which she cannot very well do if she is cowering in a corner. For my own part, I have endured this withered life for long enough. I am quite prepared to die today if I must, but if I do, then by God, I will go down swinging this stick.’

  The storm was gathering force again, and made for hard going as they crossed the grounds towards the shore. Cutter led the way, as was his habit, and since he too was armed, the lieutenant brought up the rear. They kept together in a ragged file, each straining to keep the next in view, but it was no easy matter. The way was downhill for the most part, but the terrain grew coarser and more uneven as they drew near the dunes.

  From time to time they would glimpse Angie again, flitting back and forth – a quickness in her movements now that was beyond anything natural – as if to assure herself that they were following. When she passed out of sight she left brief traces in the air, like the arcs of brightness when a lamplighter swings his wick.

  They could see no sign of her when they came to the open shore, and at first they struggled even to orient themselves. On the sands there was no shelter from the weather, and the rain came now in obliterating shoals. The tide was out, and the waterline so distant that Gideon could not make it out. There was nothing that might be called a horizon, only a wash of tainted pallor in the lower reaches of the sky.

  ‘There!’ Neuilly called out. ‘Do you see, Lady Ada?’

  ‘I see her. Cutter, look. It is this way.’

  Gideon trudged after them, coming level with Neuilly. ‘Uncle, a moment. I saw nothing. Are you sure?’

  ‘The brightness is growing, nephew, and soon it will be fully manifest to all. But Lady Ada and I have an advantage still. I see her plainly, over that way where the sky is brightening. You will see for yourself soon enough.’

  Gideon accepted this grudgingly. He put his collar up against the cold, and for a time he kept pace in silence. ‘Uncle,’ he said at length. ‘If I may speak frankly, sir. I have not always shown the gratitude that was your due. You provided for my education, setting prospects before me that many young men might have envied, and I regarded them with indifference. I have neglected my studies, I regret to say, and allowed myself to grow resentful at those few limits you were obliged to set. I am sorry for it, sir. I regret it exceedingly.’

  Neuilly slowed at his side, coming nearer to be heard above the wind. ‘Do not reproach yourself, nephew.’ He gripped Gideon’s shoulder, though perhaps it was only to steady himself. ‘I did no more than my duty, and stintingly at that. You had no great cause for gratitude.’

  ‘On the contrary, sir. You were generous beyond all—’

  ‘What were you to think, finding yourself all but banish
ed? There were reasons, as you now know, but how were you to guess at those? I did wrong, I think, in keeping them from you. I had other duties, yes, but to those I devoted myself heedlessly. It is I who have been derelict, my boy. It is I who ought to be contrite.’

  ‘But consider all you have done, uncle.’ Gesturing vaguely, Gideon raised his face against the rain. ‘All those you have aided.’

  Neuilly halted, surveying the scoured sand at his feet. ‘And what did it all come to, in the end? Where are they now?’

  Gideon was about to answer, but his eye was caught by a change in the light. A curious silence descended then, and even the weather was brought to an unnatural stillness. What followed seemed remote from him, as if witnessed from some vantage apart from his own body. He knew dimly that he had been struck. That he struggled, but was held.

  ‘Hold still, there’s a good chap.’ The voice smooth and hard, and a cold pressure beneath his jaw. ‘If you’ll just come this way.’

  And there, as he twisted. The white of her, in the thinning mist. The bright miracle.

  Angela mea.

  He was hauled now, up into the dunes. He bucked, heels dragging. ‘Can’t breathe,’ he said. ‘Can’t.’

  ‘That’s all right, old thing. You won’t need to. Not for very much longer.’

  The others below, gathering around her. She was paler now, and brighter. Untouchably calm. Cutter was approaching, slow and grave. His gun was raised.

  ‘Hartington,’ he called out. ‘I would sooner have you in the dock, but if I am put to it I will gladly have you in a box.’

  ‘I think not, Inspector.’ Gideon tried to turn, but the blunt cold was pressed now against his throat. ‘No, I rather think not. You will throw aside your gun, and the lieutenant will do the same. Otherwise, I shall be forced to put down your little pup. You have learned a little about me, I fancy. You know not to doubt me.’

  ‘Easy, Bliss.’ The inspector was wary and intent, a fierceness coiled in him. ‘Easy now. You hold still, and I will see about this specimen. You did yourself credit in the end, Bliss. You have the makings of a sergeant, after all, and we will live to put away another chop or two at Leggett’s.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I hope so, sir.’ A gull passed, sliding in silence through the leavening mist.

  ‘Hartington,’ the inspector called again. ‘I do not like your odds. That shoulder wound is showing, you know. You can hardly keep your gun arm straight. Do you see what I am pointing at you? It is a Bulldog, the most reliable thing a man can carry. Put down your pistol, there’s a good fellow, or as God is my witness, I will take off a quarter of your head at the first twitch of your finger. You will not harm that boy.’

  Angie was raising her arms. He sought her face, tried to fix upon it, but the brightness made it indistinct. A tremor then, somewhere beneath his feet. Miss Hillingdon came to Angie’s side.

  ‘Miss Tatton?’ she said gently. ‘Why did you wait for us here? What is this place?’

  Angie had joined her hands, but spread them now as if parting a veil. Gideon felt the dune slump beneath him, fissured now and spilling upon itself. Hartington’s grip tightened as he struggled to keep his balance. ‘Whatever she’s doing,’ he said, ‘I suggest you dissuade her. There could be a nasty accident.’

  ‘How little you have learned,’ Neuilly said. ‘How little you have learned if you believe she can be dissuaded now.’

  Angie’s arms were fully outstretched, a radiance growing at her core.

  ‘We might take a few paces back,’ the lieutenant said. ‘Another minute and the whole lot will give way. You have gone for the wrong high ground, Hartington.’

  ‘Bones,’ Miss Hillingdon said. ‘My God, Georgie. All those bones. Inspector, do you see?’

  ‘I will look soon enough. I am occupied just now.’

  Gideon twisted, fighting Hartington’s grip. He glimpsed the wreck, stark and solitary in the distance, and beneath him in the lapsed flank of the dune – it puzzled him, this strange nest of cages, or he kept himself for a moment from seeing. But he knew the shapes, the pale knurled hafts and fractured orbs. He knew, he knew.

  Behind him Hartington lurched, and Cutter was roaring, pounding towards him. The noise came, vast and brutal, and somewhere in him a fierce influx of hurt. He was flung away, as if by a wave, and knew only faintly when he came to rest. Above him, for a moment longer, Hartington stood suspended, then a maw widened in the sand and he was gone.

  The sense of things failed then. The order. There was a heat, an upswaying of the sky. A light from somewhere, and the arc of a gull. Slow, considering.

  ‘Bliss!’ Cutter was near him, but his voice was not. Nothing solid was left, nothing whole. He clutched himself, and near his skin he found the sixpence. The bright thing from long ago. ‘Oh, Christ. Bliss.’

  And she now, kneeling. Seeing him. Seeing.

  ‘There you are.’ To him, at last. To him. ‘You came back. I knew you would.’

  ‘Angie. I promised. I have it, look. Angie Tatton.’ Her hand found his, enclosing the token. ‘In ribbons. I found it. In ribbons of. It hurts, Angie.’

  ‘Hush.’ She lowered herself, came near to him. Dreaming, it was like, or the stillness just before. The falling away. ‘Hush now. I know. It won’t be long. Hush.’

  She lay by him, held him and made him still. He let himself be quiet. The other voices had faded now, and the greyness was very gentle. The gull returned, just once, then passed away on a soundless bend of wind, intent on something far away and out of sight.

  At New Scotland Yard, since she could fix upon no suitable place to conceal it, Octavia conducted her bicycle directly into the public office. A good many people were coming and going, since the evening was fine, and the mere proximity of a large body of policemen would be no deterrent to thieves.

  ‘Miss.’ A duty sergeant stretched from behind the counter, thrusting apart a pair of agitated callers to address her. ‘Excuse me, miss.’

  ‘My name is Octavia Hillingdon, Sergeant. I am here to see one of your inspectors.’

  ‘I’m sure you are, miss, but what do you call this?’ He jabbed a thick finger in the direction of her bicycle.

  ‘I call it a bicycle, Sergeant, but the term is not of my own invention. You are welcome to come and look, if you haven’t encountered one before.’

  The duty sergeant wiped his mouth with his knuckles. ‘You’re a right scream, miss. Which, my point was, you can’t bring it in here. This is the public office at Scotland Yard, not Wimbledon Common. You’re causing an obstruction.’

  ‘Very well, then, I shall bring it with me.’ She crossed to the low gate at the far end of the counter. ‘Would you mind letting me through? I know the way.’

  The sergeant lumbered wearily to the gate, folding his arms as he confronted her. ‘Miss,’ he said. ‘I’m going to say it nice one more time, but after that I ain’t going to be answerable. You see that lot up there? I’ve got two drunks, three witnesses to arson and some nutter says he’s the Bishop of Wapping. Just ’cause you say your aitches right don’t mean I can’t haul you in for breaching the peace.’

  He laid his palm with emphasis on the counter flap, but no sooner had he done so than a larger hand enfolded his and removed it without ceremony.

  ‘That will do, Foyle.’ Inspector Cutter clamped the sergeant’s arms to his torso and shunted him aside. ‘It is a long while since you hauled anything into this place beyond your own apparatus or the odd pound of sausages. Good evening to you, Miss Hillingdon. I have an appointment, I’m afraid, but you are welcome to keep me company on the way. It is pleasant out, I believe.’

  The inspector held the doors as she manoeuvred her bicycle from the building, but made no other concessions to her presence. When they had crossed the forecourt, he strode away without a backward glance, setting off at an energetic pace along Victoria Embankment. Octavia had grown accustomed to his peculiarities, and if she found them tiresome at times, she knew that no personal slight was int
ended. She might simply have caught him up, as she had done on other occasions, if not for the encumbrance of keeping the bicycle at her side. After a moment’s deliberation, she simply took to the saddle and followed by way of the road. When she drew alongside him – or nearly so, since the avenue was lined with plane trees – his fearsome expression was softened for a moment by something approaching amusement.

  ‘Well, Miss Hillingdon,’ he said. ‘Will it hold fine, would you say? You are at a considerable elevation, I see. You must have sight of the storms out at sea.’

  ‘I daresay it will,’ Octavia answered. ‘I do hope so, at least. I shouldn’t like your evening out to be spoiled.’

  Cutter passed behind another tree and did not reply at once, but his aspect had darkened again when he reappeared. Octavia had come to know him only a little – there seemed to be no one at all who knew him well – but from those of longer acquaintance she had formed certain impressions. He had tended always towards a certain bleakness of disposition, it seemed, and if recent events had left their mark on him, the changes might be less apparent than in a man of easier temperament.

  Inspector Cutter was, in the opinion of one plain-spoken sergeant she had consulted, the same hard old dog he always had been. The same dog, only more so.

  ‘I am not having an evening out,’ said Cutter at length. ‘I am no great man about town, as you are well aware. I am abroad on police business.’

  ‘I see,’ said Octavia. ‘And where will this police business take you, if you don’t mind my asking? I don’t mean to pry. It’s just that I’m wondering how long will it take us to get there.’